Comments

Comment by Alyne

Use this to interrupt a spell caster when kick is on cooldown. When several players are beating on a mob it won't stun him of course, but it will often prevent the spell being cast.

Comment by Gfaded

this is 1 of the best skills to regain energy for a rogue, use all ur energy hit gouge run back 15-20 yards wait for the mob to get to you and unload ur energy again and repete since the time it takes for the mob to get back to you runs the cooldown u can use it again after ur energy is gone this tip has been brought to you by Skittles taste the rainbow HA j/k, but not really

Comment by Mythical

I'd really suggest avoiding this ability while leveling. Sure, you can get energy regains, or get behind your enemy so you can backstab, but think of the damage loss you get while waiting for the energy. In those four seconds you could've done more damage, and leveling fast is all about killing fast and efficient.

Comment by Mhaik

take care when using your Gouge coupled with a DoT like Deadly Poison, as any damage taken while your target is incapacitated when inflicted will wake him up... o_0

Comment by InvisibleElf

This ability is mainly used to interrupt spellcasts, to escape, or to restealth. Restealthing is hard if you don't have improved gouge however.

Comment by Hexane

I also find gouge very helpful as an "oh !@#$" button in the very early levels, before vanish and your major stuns. If you're getting your butt kicked by a mob without any CDs or potions available, use Gouge and immediately bandage yourself, and hope you gained enough health to kill off the mob.

It may not always work, but it's sure worth a try for the saved time from corpse running.

Comment by Smaragd

There's currently chatter on the Rogue class forum about Gouge not going to award the Combo Point in WotLK. This will work like a double-edged blade.

In 1v1 it's a slight nerf. Though Gouge is not used for the reason to gain Combo Points, it is a nice extra feature when fighting a single player or monster. Probably most actively used by dagger-wielding (Mutilate) Rogues today.

In 1vX it's is a significant buff, however. You can easily target someone else to Gouge them for the sole reason of interrupting them, most importantly healers. This will no longer clear all Combo Points on your main target.

EditWotLK Beta Build 8970* Gouge awards one combo point once again.

....

Comment by shankthechicken

According to the WotLK entry for gouge, it will be losing the ability to generate a combo point, but the flip side is that they are removing the various ranks in favor of giving it damage based on attack power, approximately 1/5 of total attack power to be exact. Even in the mediocre blues my rogue has right now, that more than doubles the damage compared to the current incarnation.

My only real beef with gouge is that periodic damage breaks it. As previously stated, it is popular with mutilate rogues because it allows us to get our signature ability off when stunlocks aren't an option. When I'm grinding, I stack deadly poisons both to ensure mutilate does its full damage, and to utilize envenom as a finisher, since it usually does near double the damage of my eviscerate. So a chance tick of deadly poison sometimes foils my attempt to step behind and deliver a mutilate.

My two options to avoid this situation are either taking note of the ticks, and timing the gouge/mutilate to strike between, or to use wound/crippling poison instead. The latter option is annoying because I lose access to my favorite finisher. The former is less annoying, but seems like an unneccesary complication, especially considering the druid's cat-form disorient ability ignores periodic damage.

A talent to add a similar feature to gouge would be nice.

EDIT: Ignore everything I just complained about. Apparently mutilate is being changed in the near future to no longer require that you be behind the target. Thank you Blizzard.

Comment by Carlotta

Does any1 know the damage/attack power formula for Gouge?

Comment by hermantf

Is it true that Mage's CAN'T blink out of Gouge (Gouge incapacitates. Blink frees the caster from Stuns and Bonds)?

Comment by corners

That doesn't make one lick of sense.If hes incapacitated, not attacking you, how are you losing damage? If anything you are gaining energy back, without losing anything or getting hit. Lets not forget it shortens the cd on stealth and all your other cooldowns.Vanilla rogues realize the big importance of this. Gouge is literally like a time out. You can do so much, bandaid anyone?

Anyways, i just had to point out to all the new rogues that gouge is a very important tool for rogues especially in pvp.Considering it doesnt have a DR on pve stuff its perfect for leveling.\

Arong 60 Rogue ,Dark Iron AllyNabin 80 Rogue ,Auchindoun Horde

Comment by Abzinthe

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Comment by Shadowdarksider

To crit with Ambush is the way of the Rogue,to crit with gouge is the way of true power.

...but criting with ambush will generally leave you better off.

-Buddhist proverb

Comment by makron

Gouge can be fully negated by successful block.

Comment by arcanum

I'm surprised it hasn't been said yet but Gouge does share diminishing returns with Polymorph (Mage spell).

Comment by jorgamund

Although Gouge itself can crit, if you have Cold Blood up, it will NOT guarantee your next gouge to crit. Gouge will go off like normal and you will still have the Cold Blood aura up, waiting for your next skill use.

Not sure if this is a bug, or if Gouge doesn't count as an "offensive ability" for some reason; just discovered it by accident while testing a macro.

Comment by safafawgar

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Comment by Swiftling

Well just a little tip for farming/leveling rogues: Gouge does not work on mechanical class mobs. You deal the damage, but the Incapacitated debuff is not applied. Just have that in mind if you level up in Westfall for example.

Comment by Roguesaxaphone

glyph of gouge reduces energy cost by 15cataclysm's improve gouge 2/2 reduces cost by 30 and last 2secs longera free 6sec stun with a llittle dmg do not spread this around before blizzard change this